The present invention is related to telecommunications networks. More particularly, the present invention relates to systems and methods for determining the status of a telephone line.
Currently, a customer must determine the source of a problem with a telephone set or a telephone line. The customer may detect a phone line error on the premises and must determine whether the error is within the wiring, the telephone set, or the telecommunications network bringing the signal to/from the customer premises. In some cases, this testing has included phone line testers. For example, a typical plug in phone line tester can be purchased from Radio Shack®, e.g. Phone Line Tester (catalog #43-2225). This plug in phone line tester tests the status of the phone line and denotes any problems with modular phone jacks and phone line wiring. The customer must purchase the phone line tester and test the status of the phone line. These prior processes are a burden to the customer because they include a number of steps and may result in misdiagnosis of the problem. In some cases, the misdiagnosis results in an unnecessary service call when the problem does not originate from the telephone company.
Typically, a telephone company is responsible for any problems that occur upstream of a network interface box located at a customer premises. However, a customer is typically responsible for any problems that occur downstream of the network interface box. Therefore, it would be beneficial for the customer to know where the failure is occurring before making an expensive and unnecessary service call to the telephone company.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for systems and methods that address the aforementioned problems, as well as other limitations of the existing art.